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AP gets more expensive… for some

April 5, 2012 By

The College Board offers (in part because the government gives them money) fee waivers on the AP Tests.   But apparently the scope of fee waivers is getting cut due to cuts in federal funding.  While some states are picking up the tab (go federalism), others, like California, are not.  Poor kids are feeling the pinch.

But we poor kids have always felt the pinch.  Whether it’s skipping dances because you can’t afford to go, or running an intertube with five patches on it… life as a poor high school kid is rough.  But I think this little vignette from the LA Times story really says it all:

But at schools like El Rancho that do not receive those state funds, low-income students must foot the entire bill.

In May, Rocio, a senior, plans on taking the English literature, physics, statistics and government AP exams. And although she’s not taking the AP courses in Spanish and French, she figured she’d take those tests as well, possibly receiving college credit and freeing up time next year for courses geared toward her goal of becoming a doctor.

The fees, however, have left her and her mother looking for ways to come up with the extra money.

“It is a lot of money, especially since it was unexpected,” she said. “But I talked with my mom and she said that we’ll find a way — she knows how important it is to me.”

You find the money for the important things, even if it means not going with your friends on a trip or not getting your drivers’ license.

But are the AP tests really that important?  For my part, I think the tests themselves are a little overrated.  The value of AP, I think, is in taking the classes which are (because of the tests, of course) actually taught to something like a real standard.  But I suppose if you’re heading off to a big state school with impacted classes, avoiding having to take Freshman Composition could be the difference between graduating in 5 years or 6… which could be a substantial chunk of change.

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NYC test ban: birthdays, Halloween, dinosaurs …

March 29, 2012 By

To avoid distressing students, New York City’s education officials have told test-writers to avoid references to sex, drugs or alcohol, rock ‘n roll, Christmas, Halloween, birthdays, poverty, dinosaurs, divorce, disease and more.

Fearing that certain words and topics can make students feel unpleasant, officials are requesting 50 or so words be removed from city-issued tests.

The word “dinosaur” made the hit list because dinosaurs suggest evolution which creationists might not like, WCBS 880?s Marla Diamond reported. “Halloween” is targeted because it suggests paganism; a “birthday” might not be happy to all because it isn’t celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

. . . Words that suggest wealth are excluded because they could make kids jealous. “Poverty” is also on the forbidden list.

Dancing is taboo — except for ballet. Computers in the home are banned, but OK in schools or libraries.

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Cheating: It’s not just Atlanta schools

March 28, 2012 By

Signs of cheating, such as test scores that go up sharply one year and crash the next, can be found in nearly 200 large school districts nationwide, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis.

As Atlanta learned after cheating was uncovered in half its elementary and middle schools last year, falsified test results deny struggling students access to extra help to which they are entitled, and erode confidence in a vital public institution.

. . . In nine districts, scores careened so unpredictably that the odds of such dramatic shifts occurring without an intervention such as tampering were worse than one in 10 billion.In Houston, for instance, test results for entire grades of students jumped two, three or more times the amount expected in one year, the analysis shows. When children moved to a new grade the next year, their scores plummeted — a finding that suggests the gains were not due to learning.

In 33 districts, the odds the tests results were valid were worse than one in a million.

Here’s a map showing districts in which more than 10 percent of schools reported suspicious results.

 

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Alfie Kohn’s message: Half-crazy, half-true

March 27, 2012 By

Alfie Kohn’s arguments are “half-crazy and half-true,” argues Mike Petrilli on Flypaper.

Like most demagogues, Kohn knows how to tap into his audience’s raw emotions—anger, feelings of powerlessness, and resentment of a ruling elite. In his case, he puts voice to what many educators already believe: That school reform is a corporate plot to turn young people into docile employees; that an obsession with standardized testing is crowding out any real intellectual engagement in our schools; and that teachers have no say over what happens inside their own classrooms.

Kohn is right about “mindless, soul-killing” schools, writes Petrilli, who concedes test-based accountability has narrowed the curriculum at many inner-city schools. But Kohn is wrong in calling for Dewey-style progressivism, Petrilli writes.

What Kohn refuses to wrestle with is the argument—made by Core Knowledge creator E.D. Hirsch Jr., among others—that progressive education might work well for children of the affluent but tends to be disastrous for children of the poor.

Democratic decision-making, self-directed studies, internal motivation, and the like are wonderful aspirations. But when it comes to lifting children out of poverty, heavy doses of basic skills, rich content, and clear expectations have been proven time and again to be more effective.

The modern school reform movement is is fueled by “outrage at the nation’s lack of social mobility,” Petrilli writes. “Backing away from accountability, teacher effectiveness, and academic ‘rigor’ would likely create an even bleaker future for children growing up in poverty—children for whom school matters most.”

 

 

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Kids, fail this test

March 26, 2012 By

New York’s eighth-grade writing exam is A Test You Need to Fail, writes teacher Ruth Ann Dandrea at Rethinking Schools. The exam, which is meant to predict who’ll pass the Regents exam in 11th grade, gives full credit only to students who cite two facts from the reading material in each answer, she complains.

In your constructed response—no matter how well written, correct, intelligent, noble, beautiful, and meaningful it is—if you’ve not collected any specific facts from the provided readings (even if you happen to know more information about the chosen topic than the readings provide), then you will get a zero.

Don’t go for a good score, Dandrea advises students.

I applaud you, sample writer: When asked the either/or question, you began your response, “Honestly, I think it is both.” You were right, and you were brave, and the test you were taking was neither. And I applaud you, wildest 8th grader of my own, who—when asked how a quote applied to the two characters from the two passages provided—wrote, “I don’t think it applies to either one of them.” Wear your zeroes proudly, kids. This is a test you need to fail.

It’s possible to argue for “both” or “neither,”  citing facts from the reading and beyond to support that opinion.  If her students are good writers, as she believes, it should be easy.  Yet Dandrea thinks the exam is not just too narrow. She calls it “criminal.”

As an aside, Dandrea also mentions she gives students 10 minutes in every class period to read books of their own choosing. Is this a good use of class time?

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Early test lets students boost skills

March 14, 2012 By

When Massachusetts high school students took a college placement pretest, most learned they were on the remedial track. After taking online classes, they reduced their need for developmental education in college.

California Latinos, who make up half the college-age population, are missing out on higher education.

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Acing the post-test

March 12, 2012 By

By Signe Wilkinson

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New standards, tests may kill teacher ratings

March 3, 2012 By

New common standards, which will require new tests, may put the kibosh on value-added ratings of teachers, speculates WashPost columnist Jay Mathews.

California will switch to Common Core Standards in 2014, get new tests in 2015, but no new textbooks aligned with the new standards and tests until 2017, teacher Jerry Heverly learned at a conference organized by his union. The state can’t afford new books.

(Heverly) has no strong feelings about the current tests, but the big change in 2015 is akin to watching a rising tide approach sand castles carefully constructed on the beach.

Integrated Math I, II and III will replace the traditional algebra, geometry, advanced algebra sequence, Heverly was told.  (This is a blast from the past: California adopted integrated math — algebra, geometry and statistics are taught at each level — in 1992. After protests, districts won the right to choose a traditional or integrated approach. New math standards were adopted  five years later, which required a new exam. Integrated math went out of fashion.)

The new standards will require changes in other subjects, as well. And developers say the new tests will be quite different, stressing students’ ability to explain their thinking, not just right answers.  Mathews writes:

These new tests in nearly every state will delay, if not stop altogether, the national move toward rating teachers by student score improvements. School districts can’t do that when the tests change so radically. They might have to wait years to work out the kinks in the tests before using them to assess teachers.

Once the new tests are accepted as valid, it will take years of data on students’ progress to create valid value-added measures of teacher effectiveness.

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Dumbing down New York’s Regents exam

February 7, 2012 By

New York has dumbed down its Regents exam to avoid failing too many students, writes Michael Winerip in the New York Times. This year, for the first time, high schools students must score at least 65 on five exams — English, math, science, global history and U.S. history — to earn a diploma. But it’s easy to score 65, Winerip asserts. Literacy is optional.

The three-hour English test includes 25 multiple choice questions, an essay and two short responses. A student who gets 1’s on both responses is likely to reach 65, Winerip writes. What does it take to score a 1? The state teachers’ scoring guide gives an example of a 1-worthy short response:

These two Charater have very different mind Sets because they are creative in away that no one would imagen just put clay together and using leaves to create Art.

He also provides the start of an essay that deserves 4 out of 6 points, according to the guide:

In life, “no two people regard the world in exactly the same way,” as J. W. von Goethe says. Everyone sees and reacts to things in different ways. Even though they may see the world in similar ways, no two people’s views will ever be exactly the same. This statement is true since everyone sees things through different viewpoints.

I suppose one could argue that blathering, bluffing and echoing the words of authority figures are important workforce skills.

Winerip, never a fan of standards and accountability, doubts “there are new and higher standards, stronger curriculums and better tests just over the next hill to solve all our problems.”

“Four now,” he writes, “Wm. Shakespare must Be a turnover in his Grave (1 point).”

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Teachers matter — now what?

January 22, 2012 By

Teachers Matter. Now What?, writes Dana Goldstein in The Nation, citing the Chetty study on the long-term effects of high value-added teachers.

Given the widespread, non-ideological worries about the reliability of standardized test scores when they are used in high-stakes ways, it makes good sense for reform-minded teachers’ unions to embrace value-added as one measure of teacher effectiveness, while simultaneously pushing for teachers’ rights to a fair-minded appeals process.

What’s more, just because we know that teachers with high value-added ratings are better for children, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we should pay such teachers more for good evaluation scores alone. Why not use value-added to help identify the most effective teachers, but then require these professionals to mentor their peers in order to earn higher pay?

That’s the sort of teacher “career ladder” that has been so successful in high-performing nations like South Korea and Finland, and that would guarantee that excellent teachers aren’t just reaching twenty-five students per year but are truly sharing their expertise in a way that transforms entire schools and districts.

Reformers have been advocating teacher career ladders for a long time. Why aren’t they used more widely?

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